By the Rev. W. C. Plenderleath. 



63 



therefore, that the artist, who has taken so great pains to represent 

 this gay cavalcade, has simply failed to take the small additional 

 trouble of enquiring* of some practical falconer upon which wrist the 

 hawk was carried ; or else has considered this question entirely 

 unworthy of consideration. 



Apropos of heraldry, I may give you one more instance oiincuria, 

 derived from this science. Not only is the right arm, with the 

 above-named exception, the only one borne single in heraldry, but 

 beasts are always represented as walking, and birds flying, and fish 

 swimming to dexter. On a shield, however, under the roof of the 

 Bayntun Chapel, in Bromham Church the roaches in the arms of 

 the old Wiltshire family of Roches are represented as naiant to 

 sinister — and that by a sculptor who must have been in other 

 respects a remarkably careful and painstaking person. 



To return, however, to our White Horse. You will notice in my 

 drawings that the new horse (Fig. 3, p. 67) is represented as very 

 much taller in proportion to his length than the old one. But this 

 is accounted for by the fact that my horse is drawn in plane pro- 

 jection, whereas that of Gough is shewn foreshortened by perspective, 

 as we gather from his letterpress, in which he says that the figure 

 measures 100ft. in length by nearly as much in height. Allowing 

 for these diversities in the mode of delineation, it would have been 

 by no means difficult to evolve the one figure out of the other 

 without any undue expenditure of trouble on the part of the ignorant 

 destroyer. 



Mr Gee's horse, I may add, was repaired, and the outlines 

 practically re-cut, about the year 1853. My drawing was made 

 from a survey in 1870, since which time some further re-formations 

 have, I believe, taken place. I remember that before the latter 

 works were begun some one was good enough to write and ask me, 

 as he knew that I was interested in the horses, whether there was 

 any objection to the outlining of the figure with kerb stones — much 

 in the same way as (I am informed) the long man of Wilmington 

 has been with white bricks. I am afraid that my reply was con- 

 ceived in somewhat the spirit of Dr. Abernethy, who, when a 

 hypochondriac patient asked him whether she " might eat an oyster/' 



